Roger Ebert's ST Movie History

[Middle Earther]

I was poking in the nuTrek forum and came across a thread mentioning RE's latest "Answer Man" that is all about nuTrek: http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=93313

I then thought, as I was inspired by the rottentomatoes thread in this forum, it would be interesting to look at how he has rated all the other movies and here they are:

ST: TMP (1979) 3 stars
ST II: TWOK (1982) 3 stars
ST III: TSFS (1984) 3 stars
ST IV: TVH (1986) 3 and a half stars
ST V: TFF (1989) 2 stars
ST VI: TUC (1991) 3 stars
ST: Gen. (1994) 2 stars
ST: FC (1996) 3 and a half stars
ST: Ins. (1998) 2 stars
ST: Nem. (2002) 2 stars
Star Trek (2009) 2 and a half stars

(Please note that Ebert rates on a 4 star scale) I was actually surprised by these and I'm an Ebert fan who has been following his writing for years. I never looked at all the ratings at once and noticed that his ratings are not far off what most ST fans have rated the movies, aside from the newest. I also was surprised that two of the movies received three and a half stars, which means that they were much better received by him than I remember. My quibbles are that I would only give three and a half stars to First Contact and The Undiscovered Country and reduce STIV to three stars. I would also reduce the first movie to two stars, or maybe one and a half. What do you think?

 

[Mr. B]

I have a great deal of respect for Ebert and his opinions which I agree with more often than not. I haven't read all his Trek reviews in full, but I don't have any major disagreements with his star ratings of these movies.

 

[Shatmandu]

I ignore published movie critics, myself.

I'd rather get the opinion of someone who doesn't live, eat, sleep, and shit film. The layman has more perspective.

Joe, imagining Ebert passing reel 2

 

[Myasishchev]

I like Ebert, and find his reviews entertaining and I can often sense whether I would like something based on them--but I often disagree with him. For example, 3 1/2 stars for First Contact is insane. It's a terrible film.

Also, the bastard gave North zero stars. That movie was awesome.

 

[Kirby]

He's pretty generous to give TFF and NEM 2 stars. I can't say I disagree with the rest, maybe XI should have 3 stars, but once I see if 2 or 15 more times my opinion may change.

 

[Too Much Fun]

I've been reading those for years as a huge fan of Ebert, but I think he only posted his reviews for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" online recently, so I've been wondering what he thought about those for a long time.

I think all those ratings are pretty spot on, except giving so many movies the same rating implies they're a lot more similar than they really are. He gave most of the original Star Trek movies three stars and most of the TNG movies two stars which makes sense since most of the former are good and most of the latter are bad, but this fails to acknowledge the fact that they're good and bad to different degrees.

I'm not sure if I agree about the first one. I need to give the first Star Trek movie another look. I've only tried to watch it once and was too bored to get through the whole thing. Based on that, I think he's being too generous towards it, but I have to see the whole thing again to decide for sure.

I wish he'd given the Wrath of Khan a little more credit, but it sounds like the weak special effects diminshed it in his eyes (as they did with me), which perhaps cost it half a star. Still, it's clearly far superior to "The Motion Picture" and "The Search for Spock" and at least as good as "The Voyage Home", if not better.

I totally understand why "Star Trek IV" and "Star Trek: First Contact" are his highest rated ones. I agree that they are the most accessible, tightly written, and entertaining ones. The new one may have more mainstream acceptance than they did, but they definitely have more straightforward and engaging plots with fewer plot holes (although some people love to nitpick about that when it comes to "STFC", unfortunately ).

 

[Kirk1980]

Too Much Fun, I would highly recommend the Director's Edition of TMP. Very much improved over the one I'm guessing you saw.

 

[Saxman1]

Ebert has confessed in the past he's more of a Star Wars fan than Star Trek. He said in his review of Nemesis that he realized Star Trek was over for him. So I didn't expect anything more than two stars for Star Trek (2009).

I don't live and die by what he says, nor do I care. Someone whose favorite film of all-time is Citizen Kane is someone I'm not going to have a lot of common ground with. Besides, he's seen too many movies at this point, is too cynical and often offers how he would have shot the film personally if he doesn't like it. Go make your own film! You've been doing this since 1966 - you're stale.

 

[Myasishchev]

He did. It was called Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

 

[Saxman1]

He did. It was called Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

Ah, a towering artistic achievement!

 

[CaptainCanada]

Ebert and Berardinelli are my favourite reviewers; I always check out what they have to say.

His rankings on the films are pretty reasonable, though I'd have put TWOK a bit higher.

 

[miraclefan]

He has a right to his opinion, as do we. I don't agree on some of his reviews, but I'm not the one having reviews published.

 

[FormerLurker]

My one thought about Roger Ebert is that for all his film knowledge, he actually has little Star Trek knowledge. He has in a few reviews panned elements of Star Trek that are linchpins in what and how Star Trek works. I don't have any available off-hand or I would refer to them directly.

 

[Middle Earther]

My one thought about Roger Ebert is that for all his film knowledge, he actually has little Star Trek knowledge. He has in a few reviews panned elements of Star Trek that are linchpins in what and how Star Trek works. I don't have any available off-hand or I would refer to them directly.

I would agree with you on that one - he's not "into" ST. I know he always questions why the ships would smoke and crackle so much when they are in battle scenes. I think that reference would be in the last two TNG movies, but I'm too lazy to look it up.

 

[Stardate]

Elbert gives ST: TMP (1979) 3 stars. Here is a movie critic with good taste. However i would recommend Elbert to watch the Director's Edition of TMP. I am pretty sure he will give it 3 & 1/2 star.

 

[Nebusj]

Someone whose favorite film of all-time is Citizen Kane is someone I'm not going to have a lot of common ground with. Besides, he's seen too many movies at this point, is too cynical and often offers how he would have shot the film personally if he doesn't like it. Go make your own film! You've been doing this since 1966 - you're stale.

Certainly the ability to judge what works and what doesn't work about a movie will be diminished by having seen enormously many movies and thought a lot about what works and doesn't work and having written and debated it with other people, some of whom have seen many and some of whom have seen few but are passionate about them.

Ebert, by the way, gleefully admits ignorance of most TV shows, not just the various Star Treks, as he was doing other things than watching TV since going to college. This sometimes alters what he would appreciate in, say, the big-screen adaptation of Kidd Video, and yet somehow, I suspect not in important ways. He is a fan of written science fiction going way back and that often influences his comments about science fiction movies or connected ideas.

He also points out, quite often, that the star system is pretty near meaningless, and would like to get rid of it if his editors would let him. By reading the review, and the identification of what he likes and what he dislikes, a person is much more likely to get an idea of whether the movie is likely worth the time and effort to see than counting the number of half-stars received.

I also highly recommend his blog, which has some great and wide-ranging conversations going on with a great loyal readership/community.

 

[Middle Earther]

Good point - Most movies he reviews get three stars, but in reading the reviews you get a more specific 'feel' of the movie. A three star movie review doesn't always sound as positive as another. He's also highly critical of the MPAA rating system.

 

[cardinal biggles]

I've been reading those for years as a huge fan of Ebert, but I think he only posted his reviews for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" online recently, so I've been wondering what he thought about those for a long time.

They finally put those up? That's great... I've been waiting to read them for years, and even emailed Ebert's webmaster a couple times, but never got so much as a "get lost" back.

Here's links for those who want to read them:

TMP TWOK TSFS TVH TFF TUC GEN FC INS NEM XI

 

[barnaclelapse]

I'm a big fan of Roger Ebert's writing, but I would definitely disagree with some of those ratings.

 

[Hambone]

Harrumph. The only movie reviews any of us should care about are our own. Critics are like eunichs; they both know exactly how it's supposed to be done.